Artist’s work reflects New Bern’s neighborhoods

Gerry King with his newest book of his New Bern neighborhood paintings.

Chuck Beckley/Sun Journal

By Bill Hand, Sun Journal Staff

Published: Wednesday, April 16, 2014 at 07:13 PM.

As he spoke, Gerry King nodded his head sharply for emphasis. “I’m proud of New Bern, man, I’m proud of this place. Even when I’m in Atlanta I tell people, ‘Hey, I’m from New Bern!’”

If you want a sampling of King’s pride, just have a look at his memories: they’re on display all over his house in the form of watercolors, acrylics and pastels of the ghosts of Duffyfield, Craven Terrace and other historically black neighborhoods of New Bern. Those works will be in galleries around New Bern soon and, before May is out, in a full-color coffee table book titled “The Paper Route.”

“It’s a family book,” he said of the self-published work. “It’s really a history book. I want to keep it on a positive note: things about New Bern that people aren’t familiar with when they come here. It will open a window to that.”

Although King is a sign-maker by trade who plies his commercial art in both Atlanta and New Bern, his heart is in paintings of the neighborhood where he remembers growing up.

“I had a good life here growing up,” he said. “It was a modest life, but it was a good community. It was a community that looked out for each other.”

He lived at G-76 in Craven Terrace and graduated from New Bern High School in 1979. He was in love with drawing before he was out of his teens and the humble dwellings of his neighborhood were already his primary subjects.

He delivered the Sun Journal from 1973-75 where he learned a sense of responsibility and independence. At that time, the paper was printed at its Pollock Street office in the same building that now collects county taxes.

As he spoke, Gerry King nodded his head sharply for emphasis. “I’m proud of New Bern, man, I’m proud of this place. Even when I’m in Atlanta I tell people, ‘Hey, I’m from New Bern!’”

If you want a sampling of King’s pride, just have a look at his memories: they’re on display all over his house in the form of watercolors, acrylics and pastels of the ghosts of Duffyfield, Craven Terrace and other historically black neighborhoods of New Bern. Those works will be in galleries around New Bern soon and, before May is out, in a full-color coffee table book titled “The Paper Route.”

“It’s a family book,” he said of the self-published work. “It’s really a history book. I want to keep it on a positive note: things about New Bern that people aren’t familiar with when they come here. It will open a window to that.”

Although King is a sign-maker by trade who plies his commercial art in both Atlanta and New Bern, his heart is in paintings of the neighborhood where he remembers growing up.

“I had a good life here growing up,” he said. “It was a modest life, but it was a good community. It was a community that looked out for each other.”

He lived at G-76 in Craven Terrace and graduated from New Bern High School in 1979. He was in love with drawing before he was out of his teens and the humble dwellings of his neighborhood were already his primary subjects.

He delivered the Sun Journal from 1973-75 where he learned a sense of responsibility and independence. At that time, the paper was printed at its Pollock Street office in the same building that now collects county taxes.

“They’d drop [the papers] off at the curb. I’d go and pick them up, prepare them to be delivered. I’d roll them up and I put a band around mine.”

Then he climbed onto his bicycle and rode his route, tossing the day’s news to his customers.

Even his bicycle was art: “I put it together myself,” he remembered. “A frame that I found, and then I found some rims.”

It was a Frankenstein’s bicycle, a huge 10-speed with banana style handlebars.

“I had to get up on a step to get on the seat because my legs didn’t touch the ground,” he said. Stopping was tricky but “It was fast. It was real fast.”

His route covered Craven Terrace, First through Third avenues, Duffyfield and Bern Street. He knew his customers, many of whom he talked into taking up a subscription. In that day, he said, the community was tight-knit.

“Everybody knew everybody back then,” he said. “They could look at you and know whose child you were, because they knew your parents, who you resembled.”

He loved his route because he was his own boss and had no limits.

“You could go out and hustle up your customers and make it as big as you want,” he said. “I always had money in my pocket when I was a kid. I never had to ask my mother for anything ... I probably averaged about $50, $60 a week. And in 1973, for a kid, that was a lot of money.”

After high school he majored in graphic arts at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., then transferred to the Atlanta College of Art. Finances forced him to drop out a half year later, but he went to work in the city, buying books and teaching himself to improve his painting skills on his own.

Although he lived in Atlanta, he relied on memories of growing up in New Bern to display his artistic soul.

A casual perusal of the work in his book shows his fondness for the places where he’d grown up. The houses and people are “modest” — his words — but painting is infused with a mellow pleasantness and warmth. One watercolor is called “The Conversation.” Two men stand talking beneath the portico of a house at the corner of West and Cedar. Done primarily in shades of gray — only the leaves of trees show any color — it looks like a place any child might be happy to grow up in.

“I was thinking about the time I used to walk past this place when I was five years old to go to kindergarten,” he said.

While some of his works are full of bright color, many are primarily in shades of gray or brown, an artistic choice he has made to help the viewer see the whole picture. These pictures are monochromatic, he said.

Bright colors draw the eyes to that specific focal point, he said. But in his monochromes “nothing is fighting for attention so your eyes move around it. It gives you a calm, kind of subdued feeling.”

Evocation of mood is the primary goal of his work.

“The idea of the painting is to get people to see what you see, to feel what you feel,” King said.

While he works in several media, his favorite is water color. The medium “is like having an expensive spouse that loves to spend money, and it’s hard to learn,” he said. “It takes years.”

Unlike the slower-drying methods of acrylic and oil, “you’re working with a medium that’s always moving until it completely dries. It’s in transition. You got to kind of predict what the medium is going to do before you put it down.”

The painter’s chess game, he said, “You can’t control it. You got to see what it gives you.”

King speaks highly of other artists in New Bern. He is a huge fan of Willie Taglieri, who died in 2002, and fondly mentions other artists such as Jimmy Thompson (“He was a great artist. He still is”) and Ed McComber (“I respect his art a lot.”)

While King will often work from a photograph, he states that he doesn’t base his work on it. It’s only a reference from which to begin.

“I don’t copy the photograph,” he said. “I get the skeleton of the picture. From the skeleton you can make anything.”

King’s book includes biographical notes and memories as well as a wide sampling of his work. Some of those works have been sold, the rest he is offering for sale. The book will be available in both soft and hard covers. Although it is a self-published edition, he said, he is in talks with publishers who are showing interest in taking his publication as their own.

His paintings are available in New Bern and Atlanta as well, and he also does commission work. Several of his works will be featured in a gallery at the Bank of the Arts on Middle Street during May. Other displays will be done at the New Bernian Ball at the Convention Center on May 24 and at the N.C. History Center. Ballantyne Framing also features his work, while his book will be available at such venues as Mitchell’s Hardware and the N.C. History Center’s gift shop.